Special to The News-Star

Students at Louisiana Tech University don't always let their grades do all the talking about their knowledge.

Sometimes they show off their research, too.

More than 50 Tech students did exactly that Thursday morning as the 2013 Louisiana Tech

Undergraduate/Graduate Student Research Symposium was held at University Hall. Eight undergraduate students gave oral presentations, while 42 research posters were on display with student authors available to answer any questions posed about their research.

Louisiana Tech President-elect Les Guice was on hand to review the symposium and was impressed with what he saw.

"This is exactly why we encourage faculty to do research with their students," Guice said. "Some of these students are true college freshman already involved with cutting-edge research. It's this kind of engaged learning outside of the classroom that's becoming the wave of the future and it's great to see the kinds of results we're getting."

Adjunct professor Emerata Nelda Spinks served as one of the judges for the symposium and called what she viewed "breathtaking."

"I was talking to (College of Engineering and Science student) Kisler Wilson about his poster project (Field & Laboratory Evaluation of Environmental Effects on Chip Seal Performance: Freeze-Thaw & Asphalt Aging)," Spinks said. "He was so impressive. Here was a student from the Caribbean knowing about weather and road conditions in Louisiana.

"All of the projects are so thorough and go into so much depth. Just to think that our students are so full of new ideas gives me so much hope about the future and the role Louisiana Tech will play in it."

Bill Willoughby, associate dean and director of graduate studies and research for the College of Liberal Arts, served as a judge for the oral presentations and was also impressed.

"I heard some very good work ranging from departments all over the university," Willoughby said. "All of the students should be very proud of their presentations, whether oral or on a poster."

Senior journalism major Patrick Boyd gave his oral presentation titled Genocide and Park Avenue: How Ex Libris Brought Me Back To Cambodia.

"It was great to hear ways other curriculums are studying and giving presentations," Boyd said. "It was one of the first times I've done something like this, but I wasn't nervous at all. Mine was really just a glorified reading of my paper."

While the students made their presentations at the symposium, the research is still in the early stages for many like senior Biomedical Engineering major Rachel Baker from Longview, Texas, who presented a poster on Quantifying Space-Related Edema using Multi-Wavelength Photoplethysmography.

"We're still actually in the middle of our research - it's ongoing," Baker said. "The project started with a grant from the Louisiana Space Consortium for an undergraduate research assistantship. We're basically trying to measure light absorption to study and quantify space-related edema, or swelling. Hopefully we'll be able to publish the results of the research this summer."

Associate dean for Graduate Studies and Research and Biological Sciences professor Bill Campbell was a driving force behind the symposium and said five undergraduate students from both the poster and oral presentation categories will be selected to compete at the University of Louisiana System Academic Summit in April at the University of Louisiana-Monroe.

"I thought it all went well," Campbell said. "We had some great presentations and a good turnout of both faculty and students. The work is for the judges now. They'll have to come up with five undergraduate presentations for both the poster and oral presentation categories, and they have a lot of good projects to choose from."